The Ex Factor
by thehumancoffeepot
Summary: Luke and Lorelai ponder their previous relationships' flaws as compared to their current one. No solid timeline for this story, mostly set Season 5 when life was joyful. (Purely fluff; rated T for a later chapter.)
1. Christopher

**Christopher**

The longest day imaginable comes to a slow end. Terrible guests, fight with Michel, headache from hell. She walks slowly home, regretting the kitten heels and wishing that she had taken the Jeep today. Damn picturesque tiny take-a-stroll town.

She drags herself up the stairs and into the house, dreaming of a bath, a good meal, six Tylenol, and about thirteen hours of sleep, none of which she will be able to get. Out of medicine, no time or energy for the store, stale takeout for dinner, need to call Rory, bills to pay, laundry to be done. And it was already well past ten.

And then there was Luke. One frantic text around 5 p.m., explaining for the thousandth time that she had to cancel their dinner plans, she had to work a double, Sookie was out sick, excuses, excuses. Add guilt to the list.

Luke, who had worked just as many hours as her, who had done the same thing she was trying to do now- all by himself and at a younger age. Luke, who never complained about 5 a.m. deliveries after late nights inflicted on him by his night owl of a girlfriend. Luke, whose arms she had woken up in that morning, who had kissed her deeply and told her to have a good day even as his own morning got off to a disastrous start when Ceasar called in sick.

And yet, there is Luke. Luke, who had received her text during the dinner rush and instead of thinking of his own disappointment, thought of her comfort. Luke, who was in her kitchen finishing up a delicious smelling dinner. Luke, who had brought a bottle of wine and an industrial-sized bottle of pain reliever, knowing how she tended to get headaches when she was stressed.

Luke, who loved her and cared for her and had never once in his life thought of himself first.

It overwhelms her, and for once, Loreali Gilmore is at a loss for words. She hugs him in the kitchen, melding her body to his weakly, a few tears leaking into the shoulder of his beautiful Luke-scented flannel shirt.

"I love you," she whispers. And she means it.

* * *

She isn't sure she ever loved Christopher. She wanted to, but she's not sure she ever did.

It was easy to love Christopher on a good day. There was no effort required to have fun with Christopher; he joked, he mocked, he undoubtedly was good at making her laugh.

But Christopher would never have done this. And more importantly , he never would have thought to do this. He would have sulked about her cancelling plans, his own selfish way of demonstrating how he cared about her. "I like spending time with you, and you can tell by my petulance when I don't get to."

Christopher never thought of anyone before himself. Not of baby Rory, sweet and soft and spending her infancy in a baby carrier while her mother changed sheets and cleaned toilets. Not of sixteen-year-old Lorelai, independent but unwilling to get married. To Christopher, this unwillingness was a get out of jail free card. No marriage, no relationship, no daughter.

She supposed there was some argument that he had thought of Sherry above himself. But ultimately, that too was about Christopher. He didn't want to feel guilty twice. He didn't want to abandon his child twice.

Abandoning Lorelai twice, however, had not fazed him.

It was hard to love Christopher on a bad day. A little stress, a tiny argument, one too many drinks, and suddenly Christopher was a child. He was too sensitive, too inflexible in his emotions. If she snapped at him, it was past his ability to write it off as the result of a bad day. They had to have a heart-to-heart, he had to know what was wrong, and suddenly she was the one consoling him.

It was an unforgiving relationship, and she could never feel completely comfortable in her own flawed skin around him.

Christopher had never grown up. He had gotten a more mature vehicle and a better job and a second child, but he had never grown up emotionally. He could never be depended on for more than a day at a time.

And if there is anything she has learned in her life, it is that she needs someone dependable. Christopher might be a wonderful man, but he will never be the man for her.

Christopher, she thinks as she feels Luke's strong, wonderful arms wrap around her back, could quite possibly be someone's Luke someday.


	2. Rachel

**Author's Note: **Thank you guys for your positive feedback on the first chapter! A little background on this story (and feel free to skip this if you just want to read) - I actually used to write quite prolifically on . This story was something I was working on probably three years ago, and I just found it on my computer and finally decided to publish it. The first chapter is my absolute favorite, and I'm kind of a perfectionist so I've been tweaking and revising the other ones so that they can (hopefully) keep up with the standards of the first one. Your reviews inspire me to continue this tedious process. =)

Anyways, babble over! Trying to go (roughly) chronologically, so here's the first chapter from Luke's perspective.

* * *

**Rachel**

He loves to watch her work.

She invites him to the inn sometimes, for lunch or a late dinner or just for a quick chat in her office. Many times, he has arrived at the front desk with a bag of food only to discover her rushing past him to handle the latest disaster. Once, Cledus had needed medical care for a problem with his hoof. Another time, there had been a fender bender in the parking lot. On a memorable occasion, a man's suitcase had burst open in the middle of the lobby as he was checking out, and Lorelai had awkwardly tried to help him repack it until she realized that his belongings consisted of approximately forty pairs of underwear and one shirt.

Luke tried to forget that particular instance, but in general he loves to watch her work.

He loves the way she copes with the day's disasters. Her mood never sinks, even for a moment. No matter how many split second decisions she has to make, no matter how many hours she has to go without coffee or sleep, she is still the brightest light in the entire building.

He loves the look she gets on her face when a guest is complaining or telling a story. She looks concerned and she makes faces appropriate to the story line. But it's more than that- she seems _riveted_, like she literally can't imagine a more exciting thing to be doing than hearing that Room #3 can vaguely hear Room #4's toilet flushing.

For all Luke knows, she may truly be fascinated. The delight she finds in everyday events is absolutely stunning, and he never stops marveling at her innate ability to manufacture joy from nothing.

She's the most beautiful woman Luke has ever seen - always. But when her eyes glow in excitement, when they become so shockingly blue that he could swear they were somehow edited in real life, when her smile stretches wide across her face and her body shakes with laughter... those are the times that Luke loses his breath. Her joy is a part of her physicality, as much as her hair or her hands. Luke doesn't believe in auras; but if he did, he would say that Lorelai Gilmore's aura radiates sheer bliss.

He has never met anyone with the ability to mix fun and work so elegantly- and to look so beautiful while doing it.

* * *

Rachel was never much of a blender. She could have possibly matched Lorelai for sheer spontaneity, but she could never control her desire for new experiences.

She had gotten a "real" job one time, a few months before their ill-fated first attempt at being a couple had failed. Thinking that her interest for photography could transfer into something more legitimate than occasionally submitting photos to newspapers, she had taken a job as a travel magazine's photo editor in Hartford.

The commute alone, a stunning twenty-five minutes, was enough to put Rachel in a bad mood for hours. The job had lasted a grand total of three days before she had quit. Two months later, Luke woke up to a good-bye note and several empty bureau drawers.

Rachel had needed to see the world. It wasn't in her nature to settle. Luke had loved her- overwhelmingly, powerfully, achingly. He had thought it was true love until she left, and then left again. He had thought it was true love until he met Lorelai.

Rachel had a certain vivacity about her, a joy in the world. She had a talent for capturing beauty, but she never seemed able to appreciate it when she experienced it. She endlessly quested for more beauty, more spontaneity, more unconquered territory.

Luke had known it from the start. Yet her note, her sudden disappearance, her utter disregard for his feelings had all taken him by surprise. Naively, perhaps, he had thought he meant more. He had thought he mattered more.

He had thought he could change her.

Lorelai, he thinks as he watches her beam at Room #6's three-year-old, doesn't present him with the same insolvable quandary. Lorelai can love him completely, wholly, with no desire for more. He doesn't have to feel guilty for holding her back.

Luke isn't stopping her from her dreams because he is a part of her dreams. And the confidence that brings him matters more than he ever thought it could.


	3. Max

_A/N: Hey guys! Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter. As I mentioned, I tweak things A LOT and I'm never quite satisfied with my own writing. Additionally, I'm in the middle of finals (and hammering out the final plans for my college graduation this weekend - yikes!). If you don't see the next chapter for awhile, do not fear - I'll be back after my real life settles down!_

_Anyways, thank you yet again for your reviews. I love them all, the good, the bad, the ugly._

_This chapter is about Max, and writing it was especially hard for me. Whereas I hate Christopher and Rachel, I always really loved Max. I had to project quite a few personality flaws onto him in order to make this chapter work. Because he was a woefully underdeveloped character, I beg you to forgive me if that characterization doesn't mesh with your own personal views of Max. _

_Read, enjoy, review!_

* * *

**Max**

Luke has been fixing her house for more years than she can count. Before they were a couple and even before they were really friends, he was always the one who came to handle the many things that went wrong at the Crap Shack.

The first time had been days after they first met. Lorelai had been back to the diner every day, twice with a middle-school aged Rory, lured by the amazing coffee and the diner owner himself, who seemed to have a remarkably low tolerance for her brand of humor.

Over her third cup of coffee, she babbled to Luke, a man she barely knew, that the molding in her living room desperately needed to be replaced. She had been joking, detailing her dilemma of finding nothing but fungus removing companies under "Mold" in the phone book, when he looked up from his order pad and said simply, "I can do it."

She had been taken aback. "Oh. I… what? You do molding?"

He had shrugged. "I mean, I'm not a construction worker or anything, but yeah. I can do molding."

And so, she had given him her address and pestered him the entire Saturday when he came to work in her living room.

She supposes now, looking back, that she should have been more surprised by his offer to do time-consuming construction work for free for a woman who, as far as anyone without psychic abilities could tell, did nothing but vex him. But, even then, it had seemed natural. Luke was an amazing man, had always been an amazing man, and so _of course _he had offered to help her.

This generosity had always attracted her to him, but it's more so now that they're together. She loves how strong and capable and utterly masculine he is when he works on her house.

It never fails to amaze her how talented and raw and powerful Luke can seem to her, even when she knows the truth. She's seen the tenderness in his eyes when he makes love to her, and she's held him in her arms and felt his body shake with sobs. Lorelai knows the truth about Luke's body and soul; she knows him better than she knows herself.

She loves everything about this man: so stereotypical on the outside, but still her Luke within.

* * *

Max was never good at household work. Oh, he could cook and and clean and iron a shirt with a precision that was honestly a little unnerving. Lorelai had been more than a little surprised when she had come home from the Independence Inn early in their engagement to find her fiancé re-ironing the fancy tops in her closet.

"Babe, no, I already did those," she had said warily, fearing some sort of _I Love Lucy_ failed spousal role swap was happening before her very eyes.

"I know," he had responded with that eye-crinkling grin she loved, "but there were still a lot of wrinkles."

Lorelai had written this off to all the years he had spent at a job with an all-suits-and-slacks dress code. She had convinced herself that it would be a fantastic help to have someone in the house who knew how to crease her work pants without leaving awkward lines down the back.

Yet she began to realize then that Max was somewhere between her two worlds. He wasn't from an established dynasty of affluence like the Gilmores or the Haydens , but she knew he came from wealth. She heard it in the anecdotes he told about his childhood vacations to Costa Rica and Europe, and she saw it in the tedious care he gave to his closet full of brand name clothing.

Lorelai was related to enough snobs to know that Max was not one. But there was an implicit belief evident in some of his attitudes that never felt right to her.

For example, Max was certainly no Do-It-Yourself-er. He had never fixed a single thing in her house. Not only that, but he had also never tried. She could remember multiple times when he had dismissed a minor household chore with "Oh, I'll call the plumber/upholsterer/locksmith/etc."

That would have been fine in and of itself. Not everyone can be a handyman. But she suspects that some part of Max always found manual labor beneath him – a job that needed to be done but certainly not by his manicured fingers.

It's really a pity, she realizes now, because she finds Luke the absolute sexiest when he's hammering together his father's old boat or repairing the leg of her favorite nightstand for the sixth time. Given that they have actually had sex, that's no small feat.

Luke is everything she is not. He is strong and serious and physical and stern. He is practical and good with his hands and full of knowledge about nature and carpentry and mechanics.

Max was intelligent, and Lorelai loved that about him. But she realizes now that she will take Luke's unique brand of practical knowledge over Max's book smarts any day.


	4. Nicole

_A/N: I'm baaaaaack! Again, sorry for the delay and thank you thank you for your favorites/follows/reviews. Special thanks to deepfriedcake - you're basically GG fanfic royalty, so I really appreciate your reviews!  
_  
_This chapter is about the dreaded Nicole. As much as I would have loved to be vitriolic about the Sock Man or all of her other unappealing qualities, I'm really trying to focus on the more subtle ways that characters don't mesh (in my head, anyways). Although it may not shine through here, rest assured I do, in fact, hate Nicole as much as the average diehard JavaJunkie._

_Ok - read, enjoy, review! Only one more chapter after this, and it's one of my favorites!_

* * *

**Nicole**

Luke Danes had never been a spontaneous man. In fact, he was the antithesis of spontaneous.

Since he had taken over the diner in his early 20s, he had had basically the same routine. Monday through Friday: wake up at 5:30 (earlier if he had deliveries), get dressed and ready, open the diner by 6:00 am, and work in it until close. It seemed excessive to his friends and even his mentor of sorts, Buddy, but Luke enjoyed the work. It kept him focused. And he took afternoons off here and there.

The weekends were his time. He had always hired weekend help, as far back as he could remember. Luke wasn't one to sit around in his apartment and watch television, so he would do other things. He worked on his father's boat and spent time with Buddy and Maisy and occasionally left Star's Hollow completely for camping and fishing.

Sometimes, though, his private weekends would be pleasantly interrupted by Lorelai Gilmore.

Only a few weeks after he had met her, Luke was taking a Saturday evening shift at the diner. By Luke standards, he was in a very good mood when Lorelai burst in just as he was crossing to flip the sign on the door to 'Closed.'

"Oh no, wait!" she said as she crossed the threshold and realized his intentions.

"Lorelai, come on. It's past 11," he said sternly, pushing past her.

"Luke, no please!" she said, grabbing his wrist. "I'm not even hungry, just one cup of coffee please." He stared at her, unmoving. "Please?" she tried again, more tentatively.

He rolled his eyes enormously. "Fine. One cup and then you're out."

Following her squeal of excitement, many profuse thanks, and much more eye-rolling, Lorelai was seated at the counter with coffee, half-watching Luke as he cleaned tables and re-filled salt shakers.

"Hey Luke?"

"Hm?"

"What do you do?"

Luke turned away from the napkin dispenser he was currently wiping and glanced at her. "What are you talking about? I work in a diner. You of all people should know that."

"No, well- yeah, I do. But I meant- what do you do when you're not here?"

To Luke's immense surprise, he answered: "I build stuff, sometimes. Go camping when I can get away. Stuff like that. I like alone time."

He realized as he was saying it that it sounded like a rebuff, but he didn't know how to explain what he had meant.

Lorelai did not seem to take offense. "Oh." She paused for several moments and Luke thought the conversation had come to an end. But then… "Well, if you aren't being alone tonight, um… Rory is spending the night at Lane's and I'm kind of bored so I thought I would go see a movie. If that's your thing."

Luke paused, fully ready to turn her down, say he was tired, go back to his apartment and read. But the fact of the matter was: he wasn't tired, and he didn't really want to go back to his apartment. He wasn't a huge fan of movies; they most certainly weren't his 'thing.' But why not?

"Yeah," he said, surprising himself again. "Yeah I'll go."

"Really?" she responded, eyebrows rising.

"Yeah, really," he said with a grin. "Just let me finish up here."

And such was the power that Lorelai Gilmore had over him. Even now, some 15 years later, he was still amazed to find that a phone call or an appearance by her could change the course of his carefully calculated plan for the night, whatever it might be.

Luke Danes was not a spontaneous man. But as it turned out, a little spontaneity never killed anyone.

* * *

Nicole had been, perhaps, even less spontaneous than Luke himself. He could recall planning their first date, how she had whipped out three different devices and planners and scribbled or typed the exact date, time, and location into all of them. "Lucas Danes," they had all said.

He had wanted to tell her that he didn't go by Lucas, that even the name looked weird to him. But he had felt like he couldn't interject.

Nicole's incessant need to plan things had even bugged Luke. Yes, he liked to get to movies on time, but he also didn't mind taking long trips without pre-planning and MapQuesting the bathroom stops.

Spontaneity? An unplanned stop for ice cream was out of the question for this woman, let alone a spontaneous vacation.

And so, while they were together, Luke fell into his old familiar patterns which he so claimed to love. He got up at five, he went to work, he closed the diner, he went to bed. And he and Nicole had some socially acceptable outings from time to time. The mall, a movie, a road trip to Maine to get some sort of peanut brittle that had sea salt in it.

Luke found himself unbothered but also unfulfilled. On the day of their divorce, he was bizarrely euphoric. He thought about it for a few hours and suddenly realized that he was excited about the possibility of having fun again.

Nicole had not been _fun_. And Luke was certainly not _fun_ enough for an entire relationship all on his own. As much as he grumbled about interruptions to his routine, he needed them to happen every now and then. Without them, Luke was… well, Luke was bored.

And so, when Lorelai dragged him out of bed at 3 am to see the snow or tried to coerce him into having sex in the storeroom or asked him on Friday afternoon to close the diner on Saturday so that they could visit Liz and TJ at the Renaissance Fair, Luke complained. He complained because he knew it's what she wanted and because it was his personality. He complained because, most of the time, he really didn't want to do any of those things.

Yet, he complied – to all of the above. He stood in the snow until his feet went numb and he had sex in the storeroom in the middle of the day and he drove four hours to a place that was honestly his idea of hell on earth. He complied because he knew, on some level, that these sort of excursions were good for him.

Luke wanted Lorelai in his life. More than any other single aspect of his being, he knew this unfailingly. He wanted Lorelai, and he wanted her joy and her spontaneity and her warmth.

And most importantly, he needed her.


	5. Jason

_A/N: Hey guys! Sorry for the delay in posting this - the Internet at my house has been out for like five days. Blech- torture! Thank you so much for the feedback you've given on this story. I am having a ton of fun writing again, and it's a delight to give these two characters the relationship they should have had on screen._

_I always thought Jason was a great character, and I really laughed my ass off at a lot of the Lorelai/Jason scenes. Unfortunately, though, I just felt like they were a horrible match, and now you get to read why!_

_Enjoy! As always, I appreciate the good, the bad, and the ugly reviews._

* * *

Lorelai's breath fails her when she sees Luke without a shirt on, even now. Laying in bed, she loves nothing more than to trace patterns and place kisses on his chest, his arms, his sexy tattoo. Some nights, she continues this long after he has fallen asleep, one arm splayed across the bed and the other wrapped protectively around her shoulders.

She cannot look at this man enough, and she is baffled, in hindsight, as to how she resisted touching him for all those years.

Attraction is a tricky thing. Before Luke, Lorelai had always thought of it as something you felt and instantly acted on; if you didn't, it just sort of went away. Yet she had been attracted to Luke for nearly a decade without realizing exactly what it was.

She remembered their fingers brushing when he would refill her coffee. She remembered the feeling that accompanied those moments where they would touch each other accidentally, the electrical jolt deep in her stomach. Muted by the fact that she considered him "only a friend," however, she had not classified it as chemistry.

Now, of course, she knows. She knows Luke is made for her, because every part of his body –from his eyelashes to his ankles – turns her on. And, due in some part to their mutual attraction, of course the sex is _phenomenal_.

It was one of the first things she had told Sookie about her relationship with Luke. "How was it?!" Sookie had asked after the REAL first date, not having to reference _Bull Durham _again for Lorelai to know what she meant.

And Lorelai had not been able to resist. She had blushed and stammered and looked down into her coffee cup and had said, finally, because there was no way to mute the truth of the statement, "It was… um… it was probably the best sex of my entire life."

Probably. _Probably_. It was absolutely, definitely, definitely, definitely the best sex she had ever had.

It isn't the most important thing for Lorelai, or even the fifth most important thing. But the emotional connection she feels with Luke during sex – the way his eyes lock into hers in their most private moments – makes her sure of herself. She feels confident in those moments, confident of her own attractiveness, her competence, her appeal as a woman and a person.

If she can make Luke, no-nonsense Luke, look at her with that amount of tenderness and desire and passion and love, Lorelai knows she can do anything.

* * *

Sex with Jason had been… not bad. It had actually been – well, now that she thought of it, pretty good. He was attentive and his main goal in their sexual trysts had been, unlike many men, to please her.

But there remained his weird sleeping problem. A few moments after sharing one of the most intimate experiences people can share, she would find herself alone and cold in Jason's hotel-like spare bedroom. Despite his attempts to explain the quirk (and despite her complete belief in the truthfulness of the explanation), sleeping there made her feel cheap and used and alone.

Lorelai had spent enough of her life feeling alone. She certainly didn't need to feel it after having sex with her boyfriend.

It really wasn't Jason's fault that he couldn't sleep like a normal person. Just like it really wasn't his fault that Lorelai wasn't attracted to him.

She couldn't explain why or what caused it. All she knew was that she didn't feel the sudden, overpowering urge to just touch him, even during the early parts of their relationship. She didn't reach over and take his hand when they were in the car. She didn't hug him from behind while he was cooking, relishing the feel of her body pressed fully to his.

Jason was not unattractive. He was not _bad_ at sex. The connection just wasn't there for her. She felt guilty about this rejection, because, in and of itself, it seemed such a shallow reason to end their relationship. Perhaps that was why it had lasted as long as it did.

Lorelai found that magnetism she desired with Luke. She had felt it the moment he kissed her on the porch of the Dragonfly. Her stomach had jolted and her lips had tingled and her body had responded to him in a way she had never experienced before.

The sex is fantastic. But it's more than sex. It's more than physicality. It is an unprecedented level of _connection_ that she has never felt with any other man. She knows that her complete trust in him allows their intense, perfect bond to exist.

And that, for Lorelai, _is _the most important thing.

* * *

_A/N2: This is the last real chapter, but there will be some sort of wrap-up/conclusion to follow!_


	6. Epilogue

_A/N: The good news:I did say there would be an epilogue, and there now exists an epilogue. The bad news: I said that two months ago! I really have no excuses, other than I go through intense fluctuations with my creative inspirations and my obsessions. And also two months ago is about the time I decided to start watching Grey's Anatomy from the beginning - wow, by the way. But I digress. Thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, or followed this story. I may never be a published author, but you guys make me feel somewhat gratified for the amount of time I spend hunched over this keyboard._

_(P.S. This is fluffy fluffy marshmallow fluff. I can't help it - L/L do that to me!)_

_Enjoy! x_

* * *

When Lorelai thinks of her former relationships, she is reminded overwhelmingly of her fifteenth birthday, the last time she ever went shopping with her mother. She had tried on a dress which technically fit her but which she had found unflattering. It just didn't _fit_, she had explained to Emily over and over again.

"Of course it FITS, Lorelai," she had replied in exasperation, already motioning the salesgirl over to ring up the purchase, "I'm looking at you in it right now, honestly, _'it doesn't fit.'_"

But the dress didn't fit.

Naturally, it hadn't mattered, and Lorelai had worn the dress to whatever social event demanded her presence that week. And for the duration of the dinner, she had felt awkward and completely lacking in self-confidence, which was not a feeling Lorelai Gilmore had often, even at age fifteen.

She was pregnant a few months later, and the time for self-doubt was gone. Lorelai's life over the next few years was comprised of much more important decisions than the ones that presented themselves during shopping excursions with her mother. Yet she never forgot that stupid blue dress, or how it had bunched around her hips and made her armpits look fat, or how _wrong _it had felt on her.

Even now she occasionally thinks of that dress, usually in quiet moments when she is surrounded by her daughter, her friends, her town, her Luke. She knows her life is where it was meant to go; she knows she is in the right place, and Luke is no small part of that feeling.

He fits her. He _hugs _her. His presence makes her better. She has a hard time putting it into words, and the only thing she can think to compare it to is that ill-fitting blue dress.

Christopher was the blue dress. In his alternating dependence and aloofness, in his inability to make a commitment, in his lack of communication, he made her worse.

Max was the blue dress. She felt his judgment in some of her habits – always subtle, never verbalized, and yet still keenly felt – and she lacked her trademark confidence as a result.

Jason was the blue dress. She could technically have continued to date him. But she would have always felt _wrong_. She could not hide their lack of connection, even from herself.

Luke is decidedly not the puffy, pasty, unflattering blue dress.

She made the mistake of telling him this anecdote once, in the early stages of their relationship. She stuttered through it, realizing too late how ridiculous the analogy sounded, and she ended the rambling attempt at emotional expression by saying, "But you are like, NOT the blue dress. You're the opposite. You're like the dark green dress I wore to the Christmas party a few years ago, the one that made my boobs look really good."

And Luke laughed at her, as she had expected, and the awkwardness was diffused with several jokes about sexual acts performed while Luke was partially clothed in a short blue dress. Then she ate a cheeseburger and left, hoping fervently that the conversation would be forgotten.

But a few months later, as they are laying quietly in bed together, his arm poured over her waist, his body completely relaxed around her, Luke mumbles in half-sleep, "You're good pants."

Confused and also bleary, Lorelai turns herself reluctantly to face him. "What are you talking about?" she asks, tiredly running her hand through his bangs, tugging gently on his earlobe, and bringing her thin fingers to rest on his cheek.

He grumbles at being forced to talk again, but eventually his eyes open minutely and he sighs. "You said I was a good dress. You said I was the green dress."

She closes her eyes in mortification, biting her lower lip.

"You remember?" Luke asks.

"Unfortunately," she says with an awkward laugh, her eyes still pinched firmly together.

Luke grasps her hip and tugs her even closer to him, attempting to force the intimacy between them. When she still won't open her eyes, he plunges ahead.

"Well, I've never worn a dress. But I have had pants that didn't fit right."

Lorelai begins to comprehend where he is going with this unimaginably weird late-night conversation about their respective wardrobes, and she chances a glance at him. He smiles at her sleepily and she is momentarily distracted by the warm, crinkling valleys that form around his eyes.

He squeezes her side gently and finally finishes his speech: "I've had bad pants. And you…" he clears his throat, glancing down before meeting her eyes again, "You're good pants."

Lorelai says nothing. She is lethargic and contented in the cradle of his arms, and she fears that anything she says will make this moment somehow less. She presses her face under his neck, knowing he can feel her smile, and occupies herself with counting the slow, deep thumps of his heart as he drifts finally into sleep.

He's the green dress, and she's good pants, and it won't make any sense to anyone else. But maybe, she thinks sleepily, that is precisely the point.


End file.
